NaBloYumYum

Howdy readers, sorry I’ve been away for so long. Last week I was pulled in by the inexorable force of the Death Star, aka my Client aka the People Who Sign My Checks. Also known as HEADQUARTERS. I generally have to go in once a year for training but last year we were super-short on funds so they sent Mentos and told the rest of us to sod off. If you want my honest opinion, I prefer the years we’re short on funds. Not because I mind the trainings, but because travelling is like descending into the wintry depths of Tartarus.

Consider my flight out there, ferinstance. I stupidly give up seat in Los Angeles to get a free ticket. Gate agent reassures me that I’ll only get in to DC a couple of hours past my estimated arrival time and routes me through New York. I get to New York at the exact time I was supposed to get to DC, though once I arrive in New York I discover that my original flight had been delayed such that it would arrive in DC at 2 in the morning. I count myself lucky to have made the switch. I also count myself lucky to survive the LA-NY flight because readers I thought I was going to die. And this isn’t my general dislike of flying rearing up. This was 50 foot fucking drops in the middle of the sky with multiple adults white knuckling their seats and trying not to CRY turbulence. This was the pilot screeching that the flight attendants must SIT DOWN NOW turbulence. Granted turbulence isn’t supposed to be dangerous in the sense that it causes crashes, and my dad says the pilot’s tone was more due to the fact that the flight attendants could have been seriously injured walking around. But it was the worst flight I had been on in a while-actually since I was flying back to school in Illinois from Massachusetts and we were the last flight allowed to land into Midway during a severe storm. Later, on the shuttle bus from Midway to UIUC, the shuttle had to PULL OFF on the side of the road when we heard tornado sirens. So I’ll let your imaginations run rampant as to what it felt like landing in that weather.

Anyway, as I was telling Big Bird, the “free ticket” ended up kind of being a wash because I promised multiple deities that I would use it to go home for Ganesh Chaturti (which I don’t mind doing and usually do anyway). It isn’t a wash in the sense that “oh, now I have to go home for a religious festival I take seriously anyway” but more like a wash in the sense that I can’t jump around and say “let’s go to Puerto Rico and look I have my own free ticket” to Big Bird.

Well, we could go celebrate Ganesh Chaturti IN the Caribbean, he suggested. I shot him a withering glance over the phone that he obviously couldn’t see. GEEZ, you do NOT weasel on God Contracts. How obvious is that point?

So anyway, I got to New York intact and was supposed to immediately take off on a connection. But THAT plane sat in DC till 10 p.m., didn’t get in till 11 p.m. and then didn’t take off till 12:15 p.m.. We landed in DC shortly after 1, then you have to do that thing in Dulles where you wait for the shuttle to take you to another terminal, then had to pick up my bags and get a cab into DC. Long story short, I was supposed to be there at 7 p.m. and got in at 2:30 in the morning. Then I had to wait another 30 minutes while the night desk girl fucked up the computer so that it took a solid half an hour to assign me a room. On the positive side, I was staying at the Mandarin Oriental and they upgraded me to a suite overlooking the Potomac on account of the “wait thirty minutes for your room” debacle.

DC was okay-on the other hand, meeting Stephanie of Completely Irrelevant was awesome. I love meeting my blog readers! We went out to dinner at a hopping tapas restaurant called Jaleo. Interesting but the dude who owns that seems to own around seventeen restaurants all in the same block and they are INSANELY busy. We had to make reservations for a Tuesday! Geez, I felt like I was getting into The Ivy or something.

Anyway, if you ever meet me in person be assured that when I’m nervous I do that extra vivacity thing. Not on meth, just naturally bubbly made ever more effervescent by social anxiety. If I miss anything about drinking thoughtlessly it’s that it gets rid of my social anxiety. On the other hand, it’s the moment that I realised I was drinking to deal with my inner nervous that I realised I had to get it way way way down before it became a problem. I also don’t miss the painful pooping the day after, but I digress. 

So this month’s NaBloPoMo is about food (according to mle, who posted a really good spring rolls recipe, btw, and I know it’s good because I use one almost exactly like it). Starting tomorrow I’ll try to post a recipe a day because that’s easier than actually writing about food. Today, though, I thought I’d focus on talking about the stuff I ate in DC.

Jaleo

Jaleo was good, though I’m not sure it’s the type of food I’d wait around for. I really liked my Enselada Campenara, which was basically a Salad Nicoise renamed. I’ve had Salad Nicoise before but for some reason I adored this one-it felt light and lemony. Contrast this with the absolutely disgusting version I ordered from the Mandarin Oriental’s room service for twice the price. The Jaleo version tasted fresh, each component perfectly prepared and dressed. The Mandarin Oriental version was a disgusting mess of soggy greens and “off” tasting fish. Which brings me to my main point about Salad Nicoise, and maybe it makes me a fucking Luddite but it’s the way I feel. It TASTES BETTER WITH CANNED TUNA. Not the packed-in-water-give-to-yer-cat kind, but the packed in olive oil version. I’ll post my recipe to replicate this salad tomorrow, but I’ll leave you with this tantalising tidbit. I do not advocate using tuna-in-oil to make tuna salad, because that would be an unhealthy greasy mess, especially since you’re using the mayo. But if you eat only the serving size listed on the can and you need to use tuna non-mayoed, just freaking go for the olive oil kind. Because

a) It tastes better and

b) If you’re using it in a salad nicoise you won’t need any additional calories through the “dressing”-a squoosh of lemon juice suffices

c) Which means that you don’t get any caloric difference between using the serving size amount of the olive oil version vs using the in-water kind and then adding another salad dressing.

Stephanie had a gazpacho, which I didn’t taste, but she seemed to enjoy (she can pipe in if she wants to here). I actually made a gazpacho this weekend because I had a TJ’s box of baby heirloom tomatoes that I wanted to use up since it’s official, I’m also the peon who DOESN’T “GET” HEIRLOOM TOMATOES. The purpley ones taste fracking grainy to me.

Oh yeah, which brings me to an important point. Tomorrows post is WPF. That I made successfully! And that I love! And that is an easy-peasy very healthy meal. Gazpacho and Salad Nicoise. Did you ever think you’d see the day such recipes made it on to my blog? Heh. Don’t worry, the day after I’ll be talking about my Lamb-Apricot Parsi curry, the recipe that I gave to my friend Modern Day Hermit, who unknown to me (for a long time) ran the now-back-up cooking site Atabela. She even sent me a picture of the finished product and told me how much she loved it. Also my family loves it and it was actually the first meal I ever cooked for Big Bird so I promise you it’s a spectacular curry. Easy to make and very very tasty.

Getting back to Jaleo-we ordered 3 other tapas, a roasted asparagus with romesco sauce that I found too salty, a forgettable eggplant red pepper onion thing in sherry something or the other that I thought was edible but nothing special, and Jaleo’s take on “Patatas Bravas”. I actually quite dug this one (maybe I just like classic tapas more?)-they had sliced the potatoes like chips and deep fried them (so baddddd, and yet so goooddd) topped with the spicy red sauce AND another garlicky white sauce. I’ve decided to make a variation of this dish this weekend-but using eggplant instead of potatoes, slow roasting eggplant and onions (they caramelise if you do it at low heat in the oven), then layering in a baking dish with a garlicky spicy red sauce, topping with some crumbs of feta and baking. I’m thinking of serving it as a side dish with my salad nicoise and gazpacho for a healthy WPF-ed meal.

So I’ve got to get going because I’m home with an eye infection and I need to clap a teabag on the affected eye (dirty!). Hope you enjoy this month’s theme. You should be hearing more of me since posting recipes doesn’t require as much thought and effort as telling you how I almost died on the way to New York.

 

Of Queens, Cousins & Howwy Matwimonny

Queen Sized

My ego is definitely queen-sized, perhaps even Jesus Horse-sized, but my bed is only a double and this is causing tension between me and Big Bird.  Well, tension is unfair. More like I worry about why I’ll wake up at 3 in the morning and ask him some ridiculous question and he’ll be able to respond cogently rather than snore heavily in my ear.

1: People who have been single for a very very long time should not sleep in smaller sized beds together.

2: This is because both of them enjoy sleeping at a diagonal

3: And when one of them is an insomniac and the other is a heavy sleeper, what happens is the heavy sleeper drifts into a magical slumber and then slowly diagonals across the bed and then has to be shoved back into position.

I’ll admit that I was a bit miffed when Big Bird told me he had to shove me back into place. Here I thought I was only creeping closer for a subconscious cuddle, but BB insists I’m just pushing him off the mattress and hogging all the covers to boot.

You shove me? I screeched.

It’s a very gentle shove, he hastened to explain.  

Anyway, the upshot of all of this is that someone is insisting I purchase a larger mattress while I struggle with how to explain to my parents why I’m purchasing a queen sized bed, All of a Sudden, nothing to see here, no real reason.  I don’t know what goes on in my parents’ heads concerning the nature of our relationship but I’m semi-positive they think he’s still sleeping on the futon.

# of times I’ve made BB sleep on the futon: 0

I’m thinking of spinning it as “I’m buying a new couch because I am no longer futon-aged” and then buying a one with a built-in mattress (queen sized). But have you seen how much those cost? The price of the double bed made me almost goggle-eyed.

Oh yeah, before anyone snarks, my parents are my financial advisors because they are really decent with money. Yes, I do run purchases bigger than 1K past them. I totally know they’re going to tell me to stick with the futon, since with falling real estate prices I hope to purchase a condo at some point.

Cousins

I accidentally turned down a Facebook request from my cousin SEVEN times. Why is this? Read below.

Howwy Matwimonny

Because my fracking 21-year old cousin got MARRIED and changed her last name, that’s why. And I didn’t even recognise her first name, because Maharashtrians do this retarded thing where everyone gets a legal name and then their house name, right? Except my parents think that’s a ridiculous tradition so we only got legal names. So, we used to call my cousin by this name, S, when she was little (as in, a baby, that I remember holding in my ARMS). Then all of a sudden she started going by another name, R. And everyone called her by that name for a long long long time. But I guess “S” is the legal name, though I had long forgotten that and had grown used to thinking of her as “R”.

So this random chick named “S” with a last name I don’t recognise sends me a friend request 7 times. And I press “ignore” seven times. And then finally I get a note like, “cousin, why are you ignoring me?” and I click on the profile and lo and behold, I see all my other cousins under her friends list. So I look more closely at the pictures and she is remniscent of all the women in my family (on my mom’s side, whom I take after). At which point I accepted the friend request and said “sorry, I didn’t realise you had married.”

Anyway, then I call my parents up to be like, “What’s the deal” because readers, they do this to me EVERY SINGLE TIME. Because I am unmarried, and not just unmarried mind, but jilted lo these long years, they refuse to tell me when other people are getting married, like I will freak the fuck out. Also because, yes, I am now officially the ONLY UNMARRIED COUSIN ON EITHER SIDE OF THE FAMILY and I guess they thought I would wig.

This irritates me, because if I were the type to freak out about shit like that, I would have freaked out when my baby sister got married and her marriage took over my graduation party, where a bunch of nasty Marathi people asked me how I felt about said fact (that my younger sister got married before me). And here’s the thing, I was happy for my sister, because while sibling rivalry exists and is real, being jealous of your best friend, the on who has been there for you your whole life, is very unbecoming, and in my mind, downright immoral. Especially when, with a few exceptions, my parents have never distinguished financially and emotionally between the two of us.

So my parents do this to me over and over again. They won’t tell me when people get engaged because they think I’ll be sad that I’m not engaged, so then I see these individuals around and don’t say anything to them about their impending/past nuptials and end up looking like the bad guy (or the seething jealous spinster, you pick).   

I had this long talk with them where I pointed out that what I said at the beginning of the year holds true. I have really really let go of the idea of marriage or whatever. I’m simply not that interested in it anymore-especially since I have other things going on. I mean, if it happens for me, and I meet the right person, that’s great, but otherwise I don’t give a shit. And frankly, I don’t see why EVERYONE has to get married, anyway. I’m so done with people who tell me I’m lacking in some way or the other, aka, anyone who has been interested in marrying me. All that being set up by my parents has ever led to is a bunch of guys who

a) Are upset that I make more money than them

b) Who tell my parents that they’d do me the grand honour of marrying me provided that I change “x” behavious about myself (like the way I dress and talk).

And really, I’m freaking fussy. My cousins have all done this super-desi thing where it’s about making a “match”-you know, the person has all these listed characteristics and you smile at one another across a chaperoned date and then voila, you’re married. I’m almost positive that this involves hiding who you really are-actually, I know it does since I try to be myself and I get many earnest gentlemen telling my parents “if she could just be less modern.”

I am never, ever, ever, EVER going to marry someone who tells me to be less modern or less American or what the fuck ever. I’ve concluded that less modern = girl makes me feel intimidated because last I checked I was still pretty religious, either constantly afraid of sinning or on the lookout for sin, quit most to all of my vices (cut down the drinking to close to never, quit smoking entirely), moderate in my social views and hold on tightly to the professional bourgeois values of desi immigrantiness.

At the beginning of the year, I asked myself a serious question, which was, Is this whole “let my parents introduce me” thing making me happy? And the answer was a resounding NO. NO, it was making me actively fucking UNHAPPY. And my parents would tell me that my mindset about the whole process needed to change, that if I would only let go of this idea that I am being insulted when a guys says shit like “mold you” and take it like trying on a whole bunch of different outfits till I find the right one, that I’d be less pissed everytime some fuckwit unloaded his insecurity issues all over my head. I understand where they’re coming from, but I also realised that my mindset never will change. Because that’s not how I think. I’m way more emotional about these things, my outlook is more Western than Indian, and I’m not the type of calculating individual some of my cousins and desi girlfriends are, where everything comes down to some mysterious formula involving a guy’s paycheck and his citizenship status and making a match. I was honest and realised that if I’m to do this, give up my independence and whatnot, it really has to be about making a very honest emotional and spiritual connection to another human being. And yes, I do have standards (like educational values overlapping etc.), but a lot of it, for me, is about being able to share a more thoughtful life with someone (like we can laugh together etc.) rather than just lining up our pedigree and having children. I won’t deny that it worked for my parents, and I won’t deny that they gave us a GREAT home, and some good relationship modelling. But I am NOT my parents, I wasn’t raised in the same culture as them, and as such, when a guy tells me I need to dress less sexy, all I want to do is punch him in the fucking face, not melt into the floor and beg him to marry me.

At the end of my whole rant where I told my parents that having a husband is not a prerequisite for pursuing your dreams, my parents agreed that they’ll never pull this “our daughter is a fragile spinster flower” bullshit on me again. And I am going to be the most awesome auntie to all my friends’ babies.

The end.

 

First Wives

Want a good rant on the Michelle Obama baby mama brouhaha?

That sums it up pretty well but I want to reiterate that the reason, and the SOLE reason Fox News does this is to put down, smear, demean and coat in nasty stereotypes, the accomplishments of people like Michelle and Barack Obama. Because see, it doesn’t MATTER if you’re a Harvard educated lawyer. It doesn’t MATTER that you worked for one of the poshest law firms in the country. It doesn’t matter that your first child was born SIX YEARS after the start of your marriage.  

At the end of the day, to some nasty horrible trolls, you are a minority and *winkwinknudgenudge* some of your people…well…hey…*laugh*

Right?  Wrong.

At the end of the day people all over the country came out and voted for a man with a foreign name and dark skin, and frock it, when I sit at my desk and look at that video with my cheeks burning and the thought of nothing really changes ever does it loops through my head (because hey, I’m American and proud of it, but I still rock the funny name and the dark skin) I’m going to remember the good apples. The people who may have been uncomfortable about it, or who may never have been. But the people who moved past the gigantic elephant in the room to cast their vote for change. Because that means more to me, with my funny name and dark skin, than the malicious minds of a bunch of crusty saggy ogres at Fox News.    

 

Thought of the Day

Every time I am feeling down or like I can’t do anything I think of Randy Pausch. I was a bit worried because he hadn’t updated his page for a while but he did yesterday.

I also wonder why we (as humanity) lose guys like this but people like Paris Hilton creep around till they’re 80. It seems so unfair.

 

Declarations of Trust*

Hear ye, hear ye, this blogge be taking back certain statements in regards to a gentleman commonly known as Big Bird, who in past posts, may have been unjustly referred to as Grandpa.  

Certain Facts You All Should Know:

1) Big Bird is barely 2.5 years older than me and looks more like his college ID photo than his late-20s license picture.

2) He has arm muscles the size of small cantaloupes.

3) He is totally hot.

4) Has all his hair

5) and is very virile and in every way youthful in appearance and outlook.

Unfortunately, my last few posts made it seem like someone was on death’s bed and in order to assuage someone’s concerns regarding libelous characterisations of temperament and health (but manly murmurs, mind, very manly), I’d like to make an additional 2 points clear.

a) That I only check up with someone on social obligations because it’s the polite and fair thing to consider someone’s health and feelings on this front, especially when he or she works as hard as he or she does. Actually, it’s the polite and fair thing whether or not someone works a 100 hours a week, but I consider it way more of a priority when someone changes time zones twice in one day and I feel guilty about committing them to hijinks. I’d like to clearly state that said statement does not reflect on someone’s stamina. Someone clearly has a barge full of stamina but I’d rather not test it unnecessarily.

b) That someone was unjustly mocked for not knowing about popular music. Actually, someone easily recognises most major artists so we just like ribbing him a little bit about the Coldplay snafu. Also, to reiterate, someone is still young and cute, which is more important than knowing that Britney’s first album had a track titled “E-mail my heart”.

I hope this clears up any confusion and/or false impressions.

Sincerely,

Management.

*law joke, can’t help it.

 

Inconceivable

What the hell is the point of restaurants not taking reservations? I just don’t understand why you wouldn’t have a reservation policy, especially if you’re a popular joint that inspires long waits.

I remember waiting…umm…three or so hours to get into Burma Superstar back when I was dating Hightower. By the end of the evening I wanted I was halfway to giving up and eating somewhere else.

Mle and Hulkster are in town this weekend, as is Big Bird. Who recently reconnected with his college roommate at his college reunion. Mle pitched having dinner, I said “Okay, let me check with Mr. 100-hours-work-week to make sure he isn’t planning on spending the whole weekend recuperating on my futon,” everything was a go, Big Bird said “hey, and I want you to meet my friend”, we confirmed that our friends would likely get along, people made their requirements about the meal clear (healthy, tasty and so on and so forth) and I started getting excited about weekend plans. So I hit up on the perfect solution only to find out that they don’t take reservations. I don’t know about mle but I kind of reach the end of my emotional rope with these types of restaurants and that has nothing to do with any sense of entitlement, it has to do with the fact that I’m really strict about what I eat and when I eat it, so my body demands food every 2 hours because I don’t eat big meals.  Long waits for restaurants bring me to the point of wanting to eat my own foot and also possibly to the point of snapping unnecessarily at others so to prevent that I just start getting really quiet. It really bugs me when long insane waittimes are institutional only on account of the no-reservations policy.

Incidentally, initially I was going to invite mle and Hulkster over for dinner but Big Bird didn’t like the idea of me cooking for 4 and the housecleaning and whatnot that would have to go into coordinating a dinner party (yes, he’s very sweet that way) and just said “let’s just go out to dinner.” Which makes a lot more sense now that his friend is probably coming.

Back to the drawing board, I guess.

Anyway, WHAT THE FROCK is up with the “no reservations” policy?

 

Somewhat Hilarious

I will admit to falling prey to “Gold” and “Toyotas/Hondas”.

Read more, at Stuff Desis Like.

So, BigBird did not get the Orkut thing, whatsoever, which I find surprising considering what he does for a living. One day we were talking about social networking sites and I slipped in Orkut is for FOBs and Brazilians, aka, the citizens not the wax style and he did that Scooby-Doo ear-flop thing of arrruh? and acted like my statement was one big wax ball of mysterioso crazytalk. Much to my surprise, I’ll add. Because I followed up with a shrieky Baby how could you not know Orkut is FOB McFOB central and then proceeded to lay it all down for him and he told me, no really, he didn’t know about it.

Sometimes I feel like I’m dating a FIFTY-YEAR old. Like when we’re splitting Weekend Journal over breakfast and he lowers his half to say something like, “so, what’s going on in the popular music world, these days, Babes. Are people still listening to that band…Cold…Coldplay?” Okay, whatever, Grandpa. The poor dear has been so out of touch with popular culture for so long that he has the dumb frocking luck to stumble on a band that’s been on hiatus long enough that they just went ahead and released their “hey, we’re still relevant” album.

I’m also a big fan of “Patel Snaps” because that’s what NETIP is all about, basically.

 

Rockstar

Barack!!!

Damn I’m proud to be an American right now.

I’ll never forget what my classmates and I thought when he came out to see us at UIUC before anyone ever thought he was going to be the next President. Senator Hottie.

 

Yes, I’m Old Enough

While I don’t think I look old, I’m pretty certain I look old enough to be engaging in the following activities.

1) Watching the Sex and the CIty movie without being carded by a pimply faced teenager who was probably born circa my departure from high school. (this one I didn’t mind, actually)

2) Reaching for a sample of coffee at the Whole Paycheck without the guy in front of me saying “are you sure you’re old enough for that? Coffee stunts your growth, you know.” Me, I’m pretty sure that at 30 I’m old enough to stop worrying about my upward growth.

3) Reading the Wall Street Journal on the metro without the Stodgey Finance Guy in the suit next to me saying “Does someone your age even find that stuff interesting? I think it’s great to see someone like you reading it, though.” Me, as a thirty year old attorney who works on complex regulatory transactions, I’m very certain I find the Wall Street Journal both relevant and interesting. Thanks for the compliment. 

Alright, YES, I’m advancing my age by a year. Saying you’re 29 doesn’t exactly have the same cachet as announcing that you’re 30, especially in relation to rebutting unsolicited commentary that you’re not old enough to engage in certain activities.

I did find it really sweet of coffee guy to say “Holy crap you look like a kid” when I told him I was 30, but Situation #3 bothered me. First, I was reading the WSJ at a really young age and I kind of protest the idea that it’s an uninteresting newspaper.  My father switched us from BG to WSJ around 1993 because he felt that BG’s editorials about South Asian countries were overly negative and hypocritical. After a few weeks of protesting that they didn’t have COLOUR PICTURES and cartoons, I settled into WSJ quite nicely. Really, it’s WAY more interesting a newspaper than people give it credit for being. For one thing, they condense all the Horrible Stuff for you into two nice columns. This way you can keep up with people expiring at unholy rates in Myanmar without crying on the train. Second, the writing itself tends to be more florid than your average NYT or NYT-knockoff newspaper. Take, for instance, the recent brouhaha over InBev making a play for Anheuser-Busch. Every other newspaper: InBev is exploring buying Anheuser-Busch, an American icon. Members of the Busch family protest this development. WSJ: in-depth reporting on the CEO’s daddy issues, early bad-rich-boy shenanigans, a history of the company, etc. etc.. WSJ wins.

Anyway, I kind of suspect that if I were a) male b) taller c) older-looking, I wouldn’t have received that comment from Train Man. Also maybe if I weren’t wearing jeans and carrying a lunch bag. It reminds me of what happened to my sister when my brother-in-law was dropping her and the car off with the valet on Navy Pier (at the very last moment).

Valet: are you graduating today??

BIL: Yeah, she’s a doctor!

Valet: That’s wonderful. Nursing is a wonderful option for a young lady.

My sister and I were laughing about it later on in the day.

I know we’ve made huge strides, and those are nothing to sneeze at. It’s also true that there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with nursing as a career or anything else. But time after time after time people assume I’m a paralegal (very recently a new employee asked me, as I was sitting in my OFFICE which has my name and attorney-advisor underneath it, if I was the “executive secretary” for the lawyers) or that my sister is a nurse. 

I guess I find it funny that in 2008, reading the Wall Street Journal should merit such a hearty congratulations from my seatmate.    

 

Nostalgia

So after debating suburb vs in-the-city endlessly, my sister and brother-in-law made their choice of potential neighbourhood based on rising gas costs + the sentiment that at heart they’re more city people anyway. They’re going to live in the city-most likely Charlestown.

Back when I lived in metro-Boston, Charlestown was like…a hole. Then again, I was shocked as hell when my friend kmm decided to live in Teele/Davis Square during our early twenties because surrsly, Davis square was like…a hole. Add Central Square to that. You could get shot in Central Square once-upon-a-time. It’s where we Lexingtonians went to feel “dangerous” (real dangerous was Roxbury, Mattapan and Dor-chestah, but C.S. would do in a pinch).  

Umm, that all changed. Davis Square had ALREADY changed by the time k took up residence there and Charlestown looks like it’s rapidly gentrifying.

So I was looking at some homeporn on RealEstate.com today and having all manner of jealous feelings that Bunsen and Beaker are going to get in on that lovely Paul Revere Wuz Here home action. So unfair! I know I won’t feel that way around October/November/December when I’m still jogging outside, but right now I’m imagining myself living back in my home city, having pretentious merlot liberal conversations and chatting with ghosts about the Merkin Revolution.